General Election 2010: Conservatives double lead over Labour in new poll

David Cameron has won a boost at the end of the first week of the General
Election campaign as a new opinion poll shows the Conservatives' lead over
Labour doubling to eight points over the last five days.

By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor

8:30PM BST 10 Apr 2010

The Sunday Telegraph/ICM poll, the first national survey by the company since the start of the campaign last week, puts Mr Cameron’s party on 38 per cent, Labour on 30 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 21 per cent.

David Cameron says the Conservatives will introduce a National Service scheme

According to an analysis by John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, this would see the Tories 25 seats short of a majority in a hung parliament.

However, if the party performs better in marginal constituencies, as other surveys suggest, it could be enough to give Mr Cameron a decisive mandate.

The Conservatives are up one point from the last full ICM survey, published last Tuesday, the day Gordon Brown fired the starting gun for the campaign, with polling day on 6 May. Labour are down three points and the Lib Dems are unchanged.

That survey put the Tory lead at four per cent – a result which could leave Labour as the largest party in the House of Commons.

There is worse news for the Tories, however, with George Osborne (17 per cent) seen as the worst choice as chancellor behind Labour’s Alistair Darling (28 per cent) and the Lib Dems’ Vincent Cable (25 per cent).

Only 37 per cent of Tory supporters thought Mr Osborne would be the best choice for the Treasury after the election.

There is a decisive rejection, too, for Tory plans to offer tax breaks to married couples. Asked if they backed such reductions for married people and not for unmarried people in principle, 59 per cent said No and 35 per cent Yes.

Mr Cameron is seen as the clear favourite to perform best in the historic televised debates between the three main party leaders, the first of which will be held in Manchester on Thursday.

Some 44 per cent say he will be the best performer, against 20 per cent for Gordon Brown and 13 per cent for Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader.

ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,032 adults aged 18+ by telephone on 7th April 2010. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.